The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown (free ebook reader .txt) 📕

Deity, postpones every thing corporeal to the primary mental Cause. It is here it looks for the origin of intelligible ideas, even of those which exist in human capacities. For though sensible objects may be the destined medium to awaken the dormant energies of man's understanding, yet are those energies themselves no more contained, in sense, than the explosion of a cannon, in the spark which gave it fire. In short, all minds that are, are similar and congenial; and so too are their ideas, or intelligible forms. Were it otherwise, there could be no intercourse between man and man, or (what is more important) between man and God."—Hermes, p. 393.

11. A doctrine somewhat like this, is found in the Meditations of the emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, though apparently repugnant to the polytheism commonly admitted by the Stoics, to whom he belonged: "The world, take it all together, is but one; there is but one sort of matter to make it of, one God to govern it, and one law to guide it. For, run through the whole system of rational beings, and you will find reason and truth but single and the same. And thus beings of the same kind, and endued with the same reason, are made happy by the same exercises of it."—Book vii, Sec. 9. Again: "Let your soul receive the Deity as your blood does the air; for the influences of the one are no less vital, than those of the other. This correspondence is very practicable: for there is an ambient omnipresent Spirit, which lies as open and pervious to your mind, as the air you breathe does to your lungs: but then you must remember to be disposed to draw it."—Book viii, Sec. 54; Collier's Translation.

12. Agreeably to these views, except that he makes a distinction between a natural and a supernatural idea of God, we find Barclay, the early defender of the Quakers, in an argument with a certain Dutch nobleman, philosophizing thus: "If the Scripture then be true, there is in men a supernatural idea of God, which altogether differs from this natural idea—I say, in all men; because all men are capable of salvation, and consequently of enjoying this divine vision. Now this capacity consisteth herein, that they have such a supernatural idea in themselves.[39] For if there were no such idea in them, it were impossible they should so know God; for whatsoever is clearly and distinctly known, is known by its proper idea; neither can it otherwise be clearly and distinctly known. For the ideas of all things are divinely planted in our souls; for, as the better philosophy teacheth, they are not begotten in us by outward objects or outward causes, but only are by these outward things excited or stirred up. And this is true, not only in supernatural ideas of God and things divine, and in natural ideas of the natural principles of human understanding, and conclusions thence deduced by the strength of human reason; but even in the ideas of outward objects, which are perceived by the outward senses: as that noble Christian philosopher Boëthius hath well observed; to which also the Cartesian philosophy agreeth." I quote only to show the concurrence of others, with Harris's position. Barclay carries on his argument with much more of a similar import. See Sewell's History, folio, p. 620.

13. But the doctrine of ideas existing primarily in God, and being divinely planted in our souls, did not originate with Boëthius: it may be traced back a thousand years from his time, through the philosophy of Proclus, Zeno, Aristotle,[40] Plato, Socrates, Parmenides, and Pythagoras. It is absurd to suppose any production or effect to be more excellent than its cause. That which really produces motion, cannot itself be inert; and that which actually causes the human mind to think and reason, cannot itself be devoid of intelligence. "For knowledge can alone produce knowledge." [41] A doctrine apparently at variance with this, has recently been taught, with great confidence, among the professed discoveries of Phrenology. How much truth there may be in this new "science," as it is called, I am not prepared to say; but, as sometimes held forth, it seems to me not only to clash with some of the most important principles of mental philosophy, but to make the power of thought the result of that which is in itself inert and unthinking. Assuming that the primitive faculties of the human understanding have not been known in earlier times, it professes to have discovered, in the physical organization of the brain, their proper source, or essential condition, and the true index to their measure, number, and distribution. In short, the leading phrenologists, by acknowledging no spiritual substance, virtually deny that ancient doctrine, "It is not in flesh to think, or bones to reason," [42] and make the mind either a material substance, or a mere mode without substantial being.

14. "The doctrine of immaterial substances," says Dr. Spurzheim, "is not sufficiently amenable to the test of observation; it is founded on belief, and only supported by hypothesis."—Phrenology, Vol. i, p. 20. But it should be remembered, that our notion of material substance, is just as much a matter of hypothesis. All accidents, whether they be qualities or actions, we necessarily suppose to have some support; and this we call substance, deriving the term from the Latin, or hypostasis, if we choose to borrow from the Greek. But what this substance, or hypostasis, is, independently of its qualities or actions, we know not. This is clearly proved by Locke. What do we mean by matter? and what by mind? Matter is that which is solid, extended, divisible, movable, and occupies space. Mind is that which thinks, and wills, and reasons, and remembers, and worships. Here are qualities in the one case; operations in the other. Here are two definitions as totally distinct as any two can be; and he that sees not in them a difference of substance, sees it nowhere: to him all natures are one; and that one, an absurd supposition.

15. In favour of what is urged by the phrenologists, it may perhaps be admitted, as a natural law, that, "If a picture of a visible object be formed upon the retina, and the impression be communicated, by the nerves, to the brain, the result will be an act of perception."—Wayland's Moral Science, p. 4. But it does not follow, nor did the writer of this sentence believe, that perception is a mere act or attribute of the organized matter of the brain. A material object can only occasion in our sensible organs a corporeal motion, which has not in it the nature of thought or perception; and upon what principle of causation, shall a man believe, in respect to vision, that the thing which he sees, is more properly the cause of the idea conceived of it, than is the light by which he beholds it, or the mind in which that idea is formed? Lord Kames avers, that, "Colour, which appears to the eye as spread upon a substance, has no existence but in the mind of the spectator."—Elements of Criticism, i, 178. And Cicero placed the perception, not only of colour, but of taste, of sound, of smell, and of touch, in the mind, rather than in the senses. "Illud est album, hoc dulce, canorum illud, hoc bene olens, hoc asperum: animo jam hæc tenemus comprehensa, non sensibus."—Ciceronis Acad. Lib. ii, 7. Dr. Beattie, however, says: "Colours inhere not in the coloured body, but in the light that falls upon it; * * * and the word colour denotes, an external thing, and never a sensation of the mind."—Moral Science, i, 54. Here is some difference of opinion; but however the thing may be, it does not affect my argument; which is, that to perceive or think is an act or attribute of our immaterial substance or nature, and not to be supposed the effect either of the objects perceived or of our own corporeal organization.

16. Divine wisdom has established the senses as the avenues through which our minds shall receive notices of the forms and qualities of external things; but the sublime conception of the ancients, that these forms and qualities had an abstract preëxistence in the divine mind, is a common doctrine of many English authors, as Milton, Cowper, Akenside, and others. For example: "Now if Ens primum be the cause of entia a primo, then he hath the idea of them in him: for he made them by counsel, and not by necessity; for then he should have needed them, and they have a parhelion of that wisdom that is in his Idea."—Richardson's Logic, p. 16: Lond. 1657.

   "Then the Great Spirit, whom his works adore,
    Within his own deep essence view'd the forms,
    The forms eternal of created things."—AKENSIDE.
                    Pleasures of the Imagination, Book i.

    "And in the school of sacred wisdom taught,
    To read his wonders, in whose thought the world,
    Fair as it is, existed ere it was."—COWPER.
                    Task: Winter Morning Walk, p. 150.

    "Thence to behold this new-created world,
    The addition of his empire, how it show'd
    In prospect from his throne, how good, how fair,
    Answering his great idea."—MILTON.
                    Paradise Lost, Book vii, line 554.

    "Thought shines from God as shines the morn;
    Language from kindling thought is born."
                    ANON.: a Poem in imitation of Coleridge.

17. "Original Truth," [43] says Harris, "having the most intimate connection with the Supreme Intelligence, may be said (as it were) to shine with unchangeable splendor, enlightening throughout the universe every possible subject, by nature susceptible of its benign influence. Passions and other obstacles may prevent indeed its efficacy, as clouds and vapours may obscure the sun; but itself neither admits diminution, nor change, because the darkness respects only particular percipients. Among these therefore we must look for ignorance and error, and for that subordination of intelligence which is their natural consequence. Partial views, the imperfections of sense; inattention, idleness, the turbulence of passions; education, local sentiments, opinions, and belief; conspire in many instances to furnish us with ideas, some too partial, and (what is worse than all this) with many that are erroneous, and contrary to truth. These it behoves us to correct as far as possible, by cool suspense and candid examination. Thus by a connection perhaps little expected, the cause of Letters, and that of Virtue, appear to coincide; it being the business of both, to examine our ideas, and to amend them by the standard of nature and of truth."—See Hermes, p. 406.

18. Although it seems plain from our own consciousness, that the mind is an active self-moving principle or essence, yet capable of being moved, after its own manner, by other causes outward as well as inward; and although it must be obvious to reflection, that all its ideas, perceptions, and emotions, are, with respect to itself, of a spiritual nature—bearing such a relation to the spiritual substance in which alone they appear, as bodily motion is seen to bear to material substances; yet we know, from experience and observation, that they who are acquainted with words, are apt to think in words—that is, mentally to associate their internal conceptions with the verbal signs which they have learned to use. And though I do not conceive the position to be generally true, that words are to the mind itself the necessary instruments of thought, yet, in my apprehension, it cannot well be denied, that in some of its operations and intellectual reaches, the mind is greatly assisted by its own contrivances with respect to language. I refer not now to the communication of knowledge; for, of this, language is admitted to be properly the instrument. But there seem to be some processes of thought, or calculation, in which the mind, by a wonderful artifice in the combination of terms, contrives to prevent embarrassment, and help itself forward in its conceptions, when the objects before it are in themselves perhaps infinite in number or variety.

19. We have an instance of this in numeration. No idea is more obvious or simple than that of unity, or one. By the continual addition of this, first to itself to make two, and then to each higher combination successively, we form a series of different numbers, which may go on to infinity. In the consideration of these, the mind would not be able to go tar without the help of words, and those peculiarly fitted to the purpose. The understanding would lose itself in the multiplicity, were it not aided by that curious concatenation of names, which has been contrived for the several parts of the succession. As far as twelve we make use of simple unrelated terms. Thenceforward we apply derivatives and compounds, formed from these in their regular order, till we arrive at a hundred. This one new word, hundred, introduced to prevent confusion, has nine hundred and ninety-nine distinct repetitions in connexion